If you are saying half of america then the population usually includes everyone who is alive not just people 25-54, everyone needs money to live. But if you took that subset of the population (not sure why you would have an upper bound of 54 when most people retire at 65+) that still makes the point of half make less than 35k. The median is from full time employed people. Also someone driving for Uber who makes 60k gets counted as making 60k when a lot of that goes towards work expenses like gas and car maintenance.
If you are saying half of america then the population usually includes everyone who is alive not just people 25-54, everyone needs money to live. But if you took that subset of the population (not sure why you would have an upper bound of 54 when most people retire at 65+) that still makes the point of half make less than 35k. The median is from full time employed people. Also someone driving for Uber who makes 60k gets counted as making 60k when a lot of that goes towards work expenses like gas and car maintenance.